


Into a crystal ball

by metawohoo



Category: Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood, Kamehamehaaaaaaaa..., Parent-Child Relationship, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 22:09:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3225233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metawohoo/pseuds/metawohoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha heard a scream and knew instantly what was happening. It was the “Aaaah”, the never ending “Aaaah”. Also, the whooshing noise. She took a deep breath.<br/>“Young man! Are you watching that terrible cartoon again?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into a crystal ball

 

A practical woman, Martha told herself, would have put her bags of groceries down before attempting to open the front door. With all that business with the keys, the dropping of said keys, and the unfortunate fall of half of her bags' content when she attempted to retrieve the previously mentioned, cursed keys, she had lost a solid five minutes.

A practical woman would have used a wheelbarrow instead of bags, too. Jonathan was always hungry as a bear. Clark had half his size and twice his appetite. Every week, she brought home enough food to feed a small village, and that was on top of the meat and eggs the farm provided. It was vexing. Jonathan - as he knew very well - ought to eat less, and his doctor never failed to remind them of that fact. Clark... Clark, Martha suspected, did not actually _need_ to eat. She could hardly starve him to prove it, however, so she could not accuse him of being a glutton. Except when a whole pie somehow vanished in a span of ten minutes.

She was attempting to insert all of her purchases into the fridge - it needed a twin, preferably _before_ Clark hit puberty - when she heard the scream.

“HAAAAAAAAAAA...”

She knew instantly what was happening. It was the “Aaaah”, the never ending “Aaaah”. Also, the whooshing noise. She took a deep breath.

“Young man!”, she called as she walked to the living room, where the TV was. “Are you watching that terrible cartoon again?”

She arrived just in time to see Clark scramble to the television and turn it off. The boy had the worst “deer in headlights” face. He looked left, and right, and bit his lip. Then, because they hadn't done such a poor job of raising him, and he wouldn't lie, he said:

“Yes, Ma'.”

“Oh, sweetie. I thought we discussed this. That show is not suitable for a boy of nine.”

“I'm sorry.”

Martha sat down on the sofa and patted it, so her son would join her.

“Why shouldn't you watch it?”

“Because it's violent, and it has adult jokes, and it wasn't written for children”, her son dutifully answered.

He had a great memory. Martha, herself, had perfect recall of her first viewing of the show, when Clark was six. She hadn't been impressed, though seeing Jonathan snorting coffee had been entertaining. He hadn't been prepared for the “Your balls! They are gone!”.

As not-so-young-but-very-new parents, they didn't have a plan for every issue back then, so there had been a long, panicked emergency meeting over a video tape of the show.

“Is it appropriate for a child?

“We just saw a teenage girl flash her lady bits to an old pervert! No, it isn't _appropriate_.”

“Then what do we do?”

“We tell him he cannot watch it.”

“He says all of the kids at school watch it.”

“Then their parents are not doing their job. We should do ours!”

They had settled for telling Clark he couldn't watch the cartoon, and explaining him why. They had also said they wouldn't raise any objection if he wanted to watch it once he was old enough (though they hadn't mentioned “old enough” would be around twenty-five).

Clark looked at his feet, more dejected than their puppy when they stopped him from sleeping on the boy's bed. Mothers, Martha suspected, had colder hearts than Hitler. They had to, to resist such a look.

“Why don't you tell me why you are watching it, then?”, she asked.

“It's fun.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Is it?”

“I mean I know it's a bit... That there's a lot of fighting, but it's... Interesting.”

“So what's the story.”

“Well... The hero is a martial artist... And he was always very strong, and a bit different - like he had a tail before it was cut off - but he got along with, like, everyone. And then he grew up, and a villain from space showed up, and it turns out the hero was adopted as a baby, because his grandad found a spaceship with a baby in it. The villain is was his brother.”

Martha gaped for a second.

Ah.

“Their home planet was destroyed and there's only four of their race, and it turns out the hero was sent to conquer Earth but he didn't remember”, Clark explained.

His mother mentally moved the show from the “inappropriate” category to the “never to be watched again” one. Clark knew about his ship, and and the field they found him in. He had enough unanswered questions about his origins. He didn't need to get scary ideas from that horrible Japanese TV show. Neither did she. She wasn't as innocent as the boy, and her imagination could do without more fuel.

“And so they defeat the brother, then they all train, and now they're fighting the two other men from the hero's planet because they want to do terrible things. And I know it's just a story and it's _silly_ , but it's also a bit like something that could happen. I mean, I'm strong like that. What if someday people like me come to Earth, and they aren't _nice_?”

Martha had her share of questions about “people like Clark”, if they still existed. If she were drowning in the middle of a flood and had to hand her son over to rescuers to save him, she would, but she could not picture _one_ scenario where she sent him away that didn't include her dying. For his birth mother to have packed him into a space ship, across the universe, to an unknown planet where he might not be found, or where the ones to find him could be enemies? There had to be nothing left around her but ashes and corpses.

“First”, she replied, “if they aren't nice, then they aren't like you.”

“Mooooom.”

She smiled, and hugged him.

“Then, I think it's very unlikely you'll have to learn martial arts to fight alien menaces. We have people who aren't nice aplenty here on Earth, we learnt to work together to handle them. We don't need one person to go up against them. Villains from space shouldn't be much of a problem either, especially if their attacks take a dozen episodes each, right? Kaaaaaaaaaaaaa...”

Clark chuckled.

“Maybe just half a dozen?”

“Meeeeeeee...”

The chuckles turned into a laugh.

“Are you going to watch the show behind my back again?”

“I... Just wanted to know if the heroes won. But no, Ma', I won't.”

“You know what? Maybe we should watch it together. So we'll have a definite guide on how to deal with evil overlords from space. You know the heroes always win, anyway.”

“You _would_?”

“Yes, I _would_.”

The boy blushed and stammered.

“But you would not _like_ it!”

“Sweetie”, she confided, “I've watched sports with your father for the last thirty years. I dare say I can like _anything_ as long as I like the company.”

And she hugged him tighter.

 

\---

 


End file.
